Hideo Kojima
'Hideo "Big Boss" Kojima '''is a Japanese video game designer and director held in high regard by most of the industry, best known for his signature style that combines mind-bending philosophical questions with exciting and over-the-top action sequences. Kojima is famed for the ''It's Always Sunny in Philidelphia franchise, but after leaving Konami Holdings Corporation in 2013 formed Preet Design and established the much-beloved Splat Tim series of video games. Before Preet Design Before forming Preet Design, Hideo Kojima worked under Konami to create the It's Always Sunny in Philidelphia video games, being credited as designer, storyboard artist, and director. Although he is loved by gamers and the game industry, Kojima was subjected to increasingly harsh working conditions under Konami, being forced to work long hours with minimal pay alongside his employees. Kojima described these conditions in a 2011 interview as "We were thrown into a dirty basement and weren't allowed out until 2 AM. No, seriously. Bastards didn't even compensate us for the tetanus infections we got." After several weeks of radio silence in early 2013 both from Kojima himself and Konami regarding Kojima's whereabouts, then-United States President Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson joined SEAL Team Five in a raid on Konami's corporate headquarters. During the raid, they found and freed Kojima, who later reported that he was bound and gagged by Konami's executives for criticizing the company's poor business decisions. After leaving Konami in 2013, citing his kidnapping as the reason for his departure, Hideo Kojima was given free room and board courtesy of Nintendo of Japan CEO Satoru Iwata and announced that he was taking a break from game design to recuperate from his ordeal. After a year's time, Kojima would begin negotiations with Iwata on making a Kirby game where Kirby infiltrated a top secret island fortress to assassinate notable Dark Matter personnel tentatively titled Kirby: Tactical Matter. However, these were unfortunately cut short by Mr. Iwata's failing health and untimely death in 2015. Foundation of Preet Design and the Splat Tim series Kojima's tenure with Nintendo took a turn for the better after encountering a game that was being worked on titled Splatoon. Interested by the game but mishearing it as "Splat Tim", Kojima drafted up a script for a game that took place in the Splatoon universe featuring an Inkling named Splat Tim who shot at other evolved cephalopods in a bid to rid the world of warfare. Kojima pitched his idea to Nintendo's board of executives, who were so pleased by his concept that Splatoon was canceled and would be replaced by what would soon become known as Splat Tim. Kojima was handed complete control over the new property and the development team behind Splatoon, and using what he was given, formed game development studio Preet Design. Although the rights to Splat Tim would change hands multiple times over the course of human history, Kojima always retained creative control over the franchise thanks to an international law dubbed "the Kojima Protection Act". Category:Developers